GASTON

User guide

Introduction

GASTON is a LEGO Mindstorms robot able to interact with humans. It has been designed and realized at the boarding institute Convict Epsicopal Luxembourg (Europe) by a group of secundary students during 2002/2003. The participants were: Ben Birkel, Scharel Clemens, Luc Theisen, Max Thommes under the supervision of Claude Baumann.

Credits to Prof. Jean Mootz who realized the double-sided noise-sensor PCboard and to Prof. Chris Rogers for his continuous interest and support.

GASTON reacts on stimuli from its environment received through several sensors : sound-sensor, light-sensor, temperature-sensor. The robot's brain -actually two communicating RCXs- is programmed to read the values from the sensors and pass the correct commands to the actuators, which all are motors, in order to control GASTON's facial expression, the vertical and horizontal head-position and the position of the whole robot in the plane.

This document explains you how to install the programs on the RCXs and run them correctly. It shows you how to manipulate GASTON and what robot behaviour should be expected. You'll also find additional information of GASTON's internals.

Further information : convict@education.lu

INDEX

1. Getting started

2. GASTON's functions

3. Changing GASTON's parameters

4. Special components

5. Building instructions

6. Journal 1 & Journal 2

7. Presentation

8. Press (French)

9. Films (long 10MB)